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Given his pedigree, we are getting to the point where it is almost unthinkable that Itoje won’t captain his country at some stage.

On a Lions tour where the England captain and hooker, Dylan Hartley, was rightly left at home, and his English understudy, Jamie George, has been starting the tests, the Northampton man’s international career must surely be drawing to a close.

Whatever leadership qualities that Eddie Jones sees from Hartley must surely begin to be outweighed by the fact that England are blessed with quality hookers who are now better players than he is.

Greatest captain England have had is Martin Johnson

The rest of the team needs to learn to do without whatever he brings in plenty of time for the next World Cup.

Who then takes over seems to have an obvious answer – Itoje has been pretty much ever-present for England under Jones, even sometimes playing out of position at flanker in order to bring weight to the back-row.

If not the first name on the team sheet, he is certainly one of the first and his captaincy experience and record at both club and junior international level is demonstrable.